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LIBRARY 
 
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 University of California. 
 
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jmotiem aselfgfou^ laroblemis 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 AMBROSE WHITE VERNON 
 
THE CHURCH AND 
 LABOR 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES STELZLE 
 
 I. 
 
 SUPERINTENDENT, PRESBYTERIAN DEPARTMENT 
 OF CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 IQIO 
 
v*-?^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 191 0, BY CHARLES STELZLE 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published February iqio 
 
 C C t 1- 
 
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PREFACE 
 
 When the writing of this book was first 
 considered, it was a question as to whether 
 the discussion should deal with methods of 
 work or with the spirit of the Church and 
 Labor. It was decided that the latter is of 
 greater importance, hence this selection of 
 the treatment of the subject. It is frankly 
 acknowledged that better things might 
 truthfully have been said about the Church 
 and worse things about Labor, but there is 
 already considerable literature telling about 
 what the Church has done and what La- 
 bor has left undone, — especially when the 
 question is discussed from the viewpoint 
 of the Church. JThis book is written largely 
 from the standpoint of Labor. An attempt 
 irmade to present the spirit which under- 
 lies the labor movement, and to show that 
 
 V 
 
 23543G 
 
PREFACE 
 
 the Church must understand this spirit if 
 it is to measure up to its opportunity. 
 
 Charles Stelzle. 
 
 New York, January i, 1910. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. The Attitude of Labor toward the 
 
 Church i 
 
 II. The Attitude of the Church toward 
 
 Labor 34 
 
 III. The Ethical Value of the Labor 
 
 AIovement 60 
 
 IV. Why Church and Labor May Co- 
 
 operate 84 
 
> •) O 4 » J 
 
 THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR TOWARD THE 
 CHURCH 
 
 Recently, while studying conditions 
 among European workingmen, I visited the 
 People's Palace in Brussels. From basement 
 to topmost story the building was crowded 
 with artisans and their families, who had 
 come to enjoy the evening in social inter- 
 course, to receive instruction in one of the 
 many classes, to listen to the lectures in the 
 great auditorium, or to find diversion or to 
 seek knowledge through association with 
 smaller groups or clubs which were inter- 
 ested in the same amusements, the same 
 studies, the same problems that brought 
 them to the buildinc:. Never had I seen 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 better behavior, nor greater enthusiasm, nor 
 more whole-souled freedom among work- 
 ingmen. And the secret of it all was that 
 this magnificent building was theirs. They, 
 themselves, had spent one million two hun- 
 dred thousand francs upon it. Here were 
 twenty-four thousand families of working 
 people, who were conducting their " self- 
 help organization " upon a basis which was 
 thoroughly democratic. They had a capital 
 of three million francs, controlled twenty- 
 four stores of different kinds in various parts 
 of the city, and supported five additional 
 branch social centres in the suburbs. 
 
 As the caretaker escorted me from room 
 to room, we came to what appeared to be a 
 lodge chamber, at the far end of which was 
 a platform — not very deep, and which, ap- 
 parently, was not used at all for the purpose 
 of speechmaking or recital. The caretaker 
 stopped when we reached this curious- 
 looking structure, and on his pulling a string, 
 
 2 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 a curtain, apparently placed against the wall, 
 parted; he flashed on a row of footlights, 
 and I saw a great picture of Jesus Christ, 
 with hand uplifted. He smiled as he saw 
 my amazement, for we had been talking 
 about clubs and classes, about cooperation 
 and socialism, and not a word about religion 
 or anything that suggested it. 
 
 "Why do you have this picture of Jesus 
 here ? " I asked. " Are many of your people 
 Christian?" 
 
 "No," he replied; "I do not know of 
 any who go to the churches." And seeing 
 my increasing wonderment, he added, "We 
 believe that Jesus was the first socialist, and 
 that he was the great friend of the working- 
 man. Jesus we honor, but for the churches 
 who call themselves by his name, we have 
 very little respect." 
 
 He then told me that the Catholic church 
 across the way had offered them twenty-five 
 thousand francs for the picture. 
 
 3 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 As I passed out of the building that night, 
 I looked across at the church, — dark, 
 dismal, uninviting, while the people cease- 
 lessly thronged the streets, seeking that 
 which would satisfy their restless, weary 
 souls. And all that the Church could see 
 in that splendid social centre of the people 
 was a rather poor painting of the Son of 
 God! To the Church, with its devotion to 
 art and to aesthetics, this picture was the 
 source of power with the people, and it 
 thought to purchase it, so that the picture 
 might become its own, hoping thus to win 
 back those who had become alienated. But 
 it was n't the picture, — it was life and hope 
 and enthusiasm that were winning the day. 
 Far better were the stained-glass windows 
 and the paintings in the church, more beau- 
 tiful the music, more refined the service, 
 than anything of a like character ever seen 
 or heard in this People's Palace. But not 
 through these things could the Church ever 
 
 4 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 hope to attract men. It was the spirit — the 
 atmosphere — that pervaded the institution 
 across the way that told the story. 
 
 The spirit of democracy has gripped the 
 people. This is the dominating influence 
 in our twentieth-century problems. And 
 whether we discuss the workingman in 
 America or in England, in Turkey or in 
 Russia, we shall find that here is the force 
 that is fighting its way to the front in spite 
 of every obstacle. For a long time the 
 people fought for religious democracy, and 
 they won. Then, for hundreds of years they 
 shed their blood upon many a battlefield in 
 their struggle for political democracy, and 
 they conquered. They are now fighting for 
 industrial democracy, and no human power 
 can stop their onward march. But even in 
 the things in which they have already been 
 victorious, they are demanding the heritage 
 of their fathers which has been stolen from 
 them. That which has cost the best blood 
 
 5 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 of the human race has been purloined by 
 grafters and unscrupulous politicians. The 
 cry of the people has gone up to heaven 
 that God should again manifest his power 
 in behalf of the common people, — those 
 who once heard Jesus gladly. 
 
 Five hundred thousand men in Great 
 Britain are formed into a brotherhood; 
 practically all of whom are workingmen. 
 Significant, indeed, is the fact that they have 
 selected as their battle-hymn the fine old 
 poem written by Ebenezer Elliott, son of 
 a Rotherham iron-founder, and sometimes 
 known as " the Robert Burns of England." 
 
 When wilt Thou save the people? 
 
 O God of mercy, when? 
 Not kings alone, but nations ! 
 
 Not thrones and crowns, but men ! 
 Flowers of thy heart, O God, are they; 
 Let them not pass, like weeds, away — 
 Their heritage a sunless day. 
 God save the people ! 
 
 6 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 Shall crime bring crime forever, 
 
 Strength aiding still the strong? 
 Is it thy will, O Father, 
 
 That man shall toil for wrong? 
 *' No," say thy mountains : " No," Thy 
 
 skies ; 
 Man's clouded sun shall brightly rise, 
 And songs ascend instead of sighs ; 
 God save the people ! 
 
 When wilt Thou save the people? 
 
 O God of mercy, when? 
 The people. Lord, the people, 
 
 Not thrones and crowns, but men ; 
 God save the people ; Thine they are, 
 Thy children, as thine angels fair ; 
 From vice, oppression, and despair, 
 
 God save the people ! 
 
 In this they are expressing the hope of 
 the masses, who are no longer overawed 
 by pomp and show, by wealth and power, 
 nor by the people whose doings the histo- 
 rian records while he forgets all about our 
 common humanity. 
 
 7 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 In any discussion as to the attitude of 
 labor toward the Church, this larger influ- 
 ence must always be borne in mind, for it 
 has more to do with the changing social 
 atmosphere among the masses than has any 
 other single factor. This hope of the com- 
 ing democracy has altered the life of the 
 people in even the most distressing tene- 
 ment districts. While there is still the same 
 povert}^, and in some sections even more 
 of it, nevertheless, the people have taken 
 on new spirit and new life, and the meanest 
 proletarian looks forward to the day when 
 he and his children shall come into their 
 inheritance, and when they shall enjoy the 
 larger, fuller life, which, down in their 
 hearts, they believe God intended for them. 
 
 The occasion of one of the most bitter 
 criticisms of the Church by the working- 
 man is his belief that the Church as an 
 institution has always stood in the way of 
 his material progress. He declares that the 
 
 8 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 Church has always upheld the existing 
 order of things, no matter how hard he may 
 have been pressed by these conditions. It 
 has always stood by the ruling class, because 
 it believed that its very life depended upon 
 this class, and it did not dare to oppose the 
 men or the government which gave it sup- 
 port. The workingman tells us that the 
 Church, because of its extreme conserva- 
 tism, has always been the last institution to 
 accept any reform measure which may have h j,^^ 
 been introduced, and that it has been liter- J^>^ 
 ally, compelled to fall into line. He argues 
 that, no matter what inference concerning 
 freedom from slavery the preachers of our 
 day may draw from the teachings of Jesus 
 Christ and the apostles, nevertheless, the 
 Church actually advocated slavery less than 
 one hundred years ago, because the gov- 
 erning class owned the slaves. And even 
 after the country decided that slavery 
 . was a curse and that it must go, and 
 
 9 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 after men outside the Church accepted the 
 conditions against which they had fought, 
 and sacrificed nearly everything that was 
 worth while because of their convictions, 
 the great denominations went on quarreling 
 concerning these issues; and, even in our 
 own day, some of the churches in the North 
 and in the South cannot work in harmony 
 because of these old prejudices. 
 
 The workingman looks upon these ha- 
 treds with contempt, and wonders how it 
 is going to benefit him and his class to 
 become identified with an institution which 
 contains so much bitterness with regard to 
 dead issues, while, as a matter of fact, there 
 is more real brotherhood exhibited in his 
 own organizations. The narrowness of the 
 Church in this respect repels him. It is true 
 that this situation has been greatly exag- 
 gerated in his own mind, but there is suffi- 
 cient ground for this prejudice to give him 
 fairly good cause for his criticism. 
 
 lO 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 The workingman believes that the ChuTch 
 has not altogether gotten rid of its favorit- ' 
 ism toward the capitalist class. He in^ists.^ 
 that in nearly every struggle for better con- 
 ditions, the Church either holds itself aloof 
 from him, or else comes out openly against 
 him. In its strenuous insistence that "it re- 
 presents all classes and therefore cannot 
 take sides," it happens that the Church does 
 not represent any class, but earns the con- 
 tempt of all classes. It is neither respected ? 
 by the powerful, whose interests are con- 
 served because of its silence, nor honored 
 by the lowly, whose struggles it ignores. 
 
 The Church criticises the workingman 
 because of the methods which he adopts, 
 declaring that it cannot stand sponsor for 
 such unchristian ideals and practices, for- 
 getting that one need not go very far back 
 into its own history to find duplicated nearly 
 everything that we deplore in Organized 
 Labor to-day, even down to the boycotting 
 
 II 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 and the slugging. To quote from Dean 
 Hodges : — 
 
 The spirit in England, for example, in the course 
 of the ecclesiastical disturbances of the reigns of 
 Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth, was closely 
 sfkin to that which animates the union at its worst. The 
 matter then at stake was the religious supremacy of 
 England. The establishment for the time being was 
 to all intents and purposes a union. In the reign of 
 Mary, the union was the United Catholics of England. 
 They were determined that no non-unionist should 
 hold ecclesiastical office in that realm, and that no 
 citizen should be baptized, or confirmed, or receive 
 the sacrament of the altar, or be married, or be buried, 
 except at the hands of an official of the union. Non- 
 unionists were insulted, fined, forbidden the right of 
 assembly, and boycotted. Some of the more obstinate 
 and aggressive were put to death. Cranmer, Ridley, 
 and Latimer were burned at the stake as non-union 
 bishops. In Elizabeth's day the union was the 
 Brotherhood of Anglican Churchmen. In Cromwell's 
 day, it was the Amalgamated Association of Congre- 
 gationalists and Presbyterians. They all behaved 
 alike, doing the same kind of thing for which we 
 
 12 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 now reprobate the workingman. So they did in New 
 England, when they whipped the non-union Baptists 
 and the non-union Quakers. It all belongs together. 
 Whoever would understand what the union means to 
 the working class, has but to read Church history. 
 The unionist is actuated by the same motives which 
 made good men persecute their brethren. We have 
 now grown wiser. We have many of us come to 
 understand that no cause is advanced by that sort of 
 strife. The unionists will learn the same lesson. In 
 the meantime, let every offense of his against the law 
 and order of the community, and against the liberty 
 of the citizen, be sharply punished ; but let us remem- 
 ber how our fathers acted, how conscientiously and 
 how mistakenly. 
 
 We find the Church advocating certain of 
 the practices of the trades-union, to which, 
 however, it objects in the union itself. Some 
 Presbyteries will not permit a minister to 
 accept a call to a church if the amount of the 
 salary offered is not up to the standard or 
 "union rate." The American Presbyterian 
 General Assembly of 1909 voted in favor of 
 
 13 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 a " minimum rate " which shall be paid a 
 minister, although, of course, it has n't the 
 power to enforce its " scale." This is left in 
 the hands of Presbyteries, if they desire to 
 make it operative, and some of them are 
 doing it. 
 
 It is true that the ministers' association is 
 not a labor union, in that it bars out any- 
 body who desires to preach because he does 
 not possess a "union card," or, to speak ec- 
 clesiastically, his ordination papers. But in 
 actual practice, the ministers' associations 
 guard more jealously the rights of their 
 membership than does the average labor 
 union. This is justified, because everything 
 must be done " decently and in order "; but 
 the trades-unionist makes the same claim. 
 He, too, recognizes that there may be su- 
 perior men who can afford to remain out of 
 the union, and who will not jeopardize the 
 well-being of the craft, just as there are some 
 men who may preach effectively and help- 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 full}^ practice the functions of the minister, 
 even though not ordained; but there are 
 vast numbers of others who need to be 
 brought within the discipline of the trades 
 organization, just as the average candidate 
 for the gospel ministry needs to be held 
 within the bounds prescribed by the ec- 
 clesiastical organization. These rules are 
 necessary, not alone for the maintenance of 
 the trades organization and the ministers' 
 association, but for the good of society as a 
 whole. 
 
 However unjust the workingman may be 
 in his criticism of the Church, he feels that 
 t he Church is unj ust in its criticism of him. 
 The Church has looked merely upon the 
 surface, never once seeing the principles 
 which underlie certain of his actions. He 
 feels that the Church is assuming an attitude 
 of Pharisaical supremacy which is not justi- 
 fied by the facts as he knows them, or as he 
 thinks he knows them. He resents being 
 
 15 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 looked down upon as a creature who is so 
 far gone that his every act must necessarily 
 ,be vicious or vile. With his organization 
 misunderstood and his actions misconstrued, 
 the workingman will have nothing to do 
 with an institution which criticises without 
 knowledge, and condemns without investi- 
 gation. It is amusing to hear some evangel- 
 ists and certain preachers report with great 
 satisfaction that " a man who once belonged 
 to a labor union " professed conversion or 
 joined the Church. As though the mere fact 
 that a workingman was or is a trades-union- 
 ist or even a socialist is sufficient to char- 
 acterize him as a sinner beyond the ordinary 
 run of men. Such a position on the part of 
 the representatives of the Church has dis- 
 gusted large numbers of intelligent artisans. 
 The workingman does not care about the 
 ecclesiastical discussions which occupy so 
 much of the time of ministers' organiza- 
 tions, and which have to do with hair-split- 
 
 i6 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 ting arguments that have absolutely no re- 
 lationship to present-clay human problems. 
 The workingman is not particularly at- 
 tracted by the preaching of a liberal theo- 
 logy, as so many who are not workingmen 
 are insisting; because, if he were, the Uni- 
 tarian and the Universalist churches would 
 be crowded by workingmen; but he has no 
 patience with a Church or a group of min- 
 isters who are more interested in the dis- 
 
 cussion of an abstract point in tHeoT ogy than 
 they are i n the pressing^ moral problems of the 
 twentieth century. fTo the average work- 
 ingman, the Church seems more concerned 
 about the sweet by and by than about the 
 bitter here and now. The Church seems to 
 fail in touching life in a human way. It is an 
 institution separate and apart from life as 
 he knows it. It does not get down to the ac- 
 tuality of things as he has to do with them. 
 The average workingman feels that the 
 average minister talks about facts and forces 
 
 17 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 which do not come within the range of his 
 own thought and experience. The working- 
 man wonders wh}^ the minister spends so 
 much time discussing the social problems 
 of the Israelites, the Jebusites, the Hivites, 
 and the Hittites, and pa3^s so little attention 
 to those of the Pittsburghites, the Chicago- 
 iteSj the Brooklynites, and the Bostonites. 
 He cannot understand why the Israels, the 
 Isaacs, and the Jacobs of the long ago should 
 be so inuch more fascinating to the student 
 of the Bible in the Church and in the Sun- 
 day School, than the Vaclavs and the Giu- 
 seppes and the Michaels of the present day. 
 The minister seems to live in the clouds 
 six days in the week, coming down to earth 
 on the seventh day to deliver a message 
 which is supposed to help men who are com- 
 pelled to live on the earth every day in the 
 week. 
 
 To be sure, he sometimes sees the min- 
 ister on the street on Monday, but his 
 
 i8 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 clothes and his talk and his life all seem to 
 be related to a world which is n't the work- 
 ingman's world. There are many excep- 
 tions to this, but to the average workingman 
 the ministers, as a whole, are neither men 
 nor women, — they are in a class all their 
 own. It may come as a shock to many min- 
 isters to learn that their sermons are on a 
 lower intellectual level than are the ad- 
 dresses delivered by most labor leaders, and 
 that the language employed in the labor hall 
 is far more direct and very much clearer. 
 The intelligent workingman has been 
 trained in this environment, and he scorns 
 the archaic language often employed in the 
 church service, and the circumlocutionous 
 speech of the minister. And all the while 
 the average minister feels that he must 
 " come down " to the level of the worker. 
 The worker will not understand the prob- 
 lems of theology which the minister may 
 learnedly discuss, but his own people do 
 
 19 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 not care very much about them, for that 
 matter. But if he talks in real man-fashion 
 about up-to-date questions, the minister will 
 need to give the workingman the best he 
 has. 
 
 Sometimes the workingman has n't very 
 much use for the Church because he can- 
 not see that the professing Christian em- 
 ployer treats his help any better than does 
 the non-Christian employer. He points to 
 the fact that in nearly every great industrial 
 struggle it has been discovered that the man 
 at the top was a churchman, and sometimes, 
 when the conditions against which he has 
 been fighting have been so palpably unjust 
 that every one could see it, the employer 
 still was active in the Church as an office- 
 bearer, without condemnation or rebuke. 
 Discipline has entirely departed from the 
 Church, and men who are known to be 
 grafters and law-breakers of the worst kind 
 are retained upon the church rolls. It is 
 
 20 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 an unheard-of thing in recent years for a 
 church court to dismiss a member because 
 of unjust or even criminal practice, to say 
 nothing about the most outrageous treat- 
 ment of employees. To many toilers the 
 modern Church is merely a " trump card " 
 in the hands of the wealthy classes. They 
 are no more Christian than are the heathen, 
 toward whose conversion they contribute 
 their ill-gotten riches. Indeed, " the ethics 
 of many of them is lower than that of the 
 jungle." 
 
 The laborer tells us that ministers — but 
 principally prominent laymen — have sys- 
 tematically opposed social reform of every 
 description, merely because it might reduce 
 their profits. Child-labor laws, old-age pen- 
 sions, free education, factoiy acts, housing 
 reforms, and labor legislation of every sort 
 have been fought by those who were promi- 
 nent in the work of the Church. There has 
 been no regard whatever for the lives of 
 
 2 I 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 women and children, and the introduction of 
 safety appliances for their benefit has been 
 opposed most bitterly by churchmen. The 
 most strenuous opponent of better tene- 
 ment-house laws in New York was a church 
 corporation, owner of some of the worst 
 tenements in the city. Fighting the passage 
 of the Licensing Bill in the House of Com- 
 mons last year, which meant practically the 
 abolition of the saloon in Great Britain, but 
 upon the fairest kind of a basis, was a com- 
 pany of prominent ministers and laymen 
 who owned stock in breweries and distil- 
 leries, while the labor members in the 
 House, to a man, fought for its passage. 
 Laboring men feel that whatever they have 
 gained in social reform, they have won not 
 only without the Church, but often in spite 
 of the Church. To most of them the Church 
 is merely a great institution or machine, 
 going through the motions, but never actu- 
 ally producing anything; it is a hotbed of 
 
 22 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 officialism, filled with a company of self- 
 seekers. Largely, for these reasons, the 
 Church is to-day composed of the bour- 
 geois and so-called upper classes. The 
 workingman — the artisan and the laborer 
 — is n't present in very large numbers. It 
 is true that in some towns, and even in some 
 cities which are inhabited almost entirely 
 by the laboring class, he is to be found in 
 the churches; but in the great commercial 
 centres, in which are found all classes of 
 people, the fact of the workingman's aliena- 
 tion is very clearly marked. Not alone in 
 the city, however, does this condition exist. 
 The farm-hand is just as far removed from 
 the Church as is his brother in the town, 
 because the country also has its social and 
 industrial problem, although the Church 
 apparently has not yet realized this fact. 
 The country church might well look about 
 its own field, to see wherein it fails to reach 
 the men who are working for wages. 
 
 23 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 The immigrant workingman is alienated 
 from the Church. It does n't take him long 
 to become Americanized in this respect, for 
 even the Catholic Church no longer holds 
 him to any extent after he has been in this 
 country for a year or more. The churches 
 have almost no hold upon the Italian, the 
 Hungarian, the Bohemian, the Pole, the Rus- 
 sian Jew, — indeed, practically all of the 
 races which are coming to our country by 
 the million are or soon become indifferent to 
 the Church. In many cases this alienation 
 is due to the unchristian and often the un- 
 scrupulous action of church officials in their 
 native lands, or it is attributable to the so- 
 cial and economic conditions under which 
 the immigrants are compelled to live after 
 they make their homes with us. 
 
 In France and Belgium the antagonism 
 to the Church is quite marked among work- 
 ingmen. This is largely due to socialistic 
 and revolutionary influence. This applies 
 
 24 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 to many other European countries, particu- 
 larly where the Church is dominated by the 
 State. In Germany there is scarcely a min- 
 ister who dares come out openly in favor 
 of socialism, even though he may believe 
 in it, because of the strong opposition of 
 the government to this economic doctrine. 
 However, there are in Germany two hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand " Christian trades- 
 unionists " who are identified with the 
 Church, and who are practically under the 
 tutelage of the clergy. They are despised 
 by the socialist wing because of their loy- 
 alty to the Church. In England the feeling 
 against the Church among the rank and file 
 of workingmen is quite strong, — as strong, 
 at any rate, as it is in America, although 
 there are organizations for men affiliated 
 with the Church, such as the Pleasant Sun- 
 day Afternoon, the Brotherhood, and the 
 Adult Schools, which are holding large 
 numbers of men in at least a nominal rela- 
 ys 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 tionship with the Church. We, in America, 
 have not succeeded in bringing about such 
 an affiliation. It is quite a remarkable thing, 
 also, that the majority of the labor mem- 
 bers in Parliament — of whom there are 
 about fifty — are identified directly with the 
 Church. The chairman of the Labor Party 
 in the House of Commons is Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the great Brotherhood to which 
 reference has already been made, and these 
 leaders of labor in Parliament are frequently 
 called upon to speak at religious gatherings 
 of various kinds, because of their sympathy 
 with the Church. Indeed, most of the prom- 
 inent labor leaders in Great Britain confess 
 that they received their training as public 
 speakers in the class meetings of the Meth- 
 odist Church, and many of them have been 
 local preachers. It is worthy of notice that 
 whatever the rank and file of the workers 
 may think of the Church, they are careful to 
 select as their leaders men of unquestioned 
 
 26 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 character, and usually those who are total 
 abstainers and members of the Church. 
 
 Whether or not the tendency of the work- 
 ingman to remain away from the Church is 
 increasing or decreasing has been variously 
 decided. There are many students of this 
 question who honestly believe that the gulf 
 between the Church and Labor is widenino^ 
 and deepening, and that there is really no 
 hope of a closing up of the gap. They 
 prophesy that the Church will eventually 
 collapse because it has lost the common 
 people, upon whom it has always depended 
 for its very life, and that the people will 
 build upon its ruins another organization, 
 which shall truly represent Jesus in the 
 world. But, in recent years, man\' hopeful 
 signs have appeared upon the horizon, — 
 signs hopeful to the Church and to the 
 workingman. 
 
 In connection with a recent Presbyterian 
 General Assembly meeting, held in Kansas 
 
 ^1 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 City, the church and labor mass meeting 
 held in Convention Hall on Sunday after- 
 noon was attended by nearly fifteen thou- 
 sand persons, at least half of whom were 
 workingmen. It was not only the greatest 
 meeting of the Presbyterian Assembly in 
 Kansas City, but it was the most largely 
 attended meeting in the over one hundred 
 years of its history. It is significant that the 
 meeting which holds this record should be 
 one so largely composed of that class which 
 is supposed to be alienated from the Church. 
 The writer has long had standing offers 
 from dozens of cities to address big crowds 
 of workingmen in halls and theatres, under 
 the auspices of central labor bodies. The 
 expenses are to be borne by the working- 
 men themselves, and the topics discussed 
 to be selected by the speaker. Many such 
 meetings have been held, to the evident 
 satisfaction of both the Church and the 
 workingmen. Practically every Sunday af- 
 
 28 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 ternoon, during the winter season, is em- 
 ployed in speaking to mass meetings of 
 workingmen, sometimes under the direction 
 of Young Men's Christian Associations or 
 Church Brotherhoods, although some of 
 the best meetings are held by the churches 
 themselves, and in their own buildings. 
 The audiences rarely number less than one 
 thousand, while there have been meetings 
 at which ten and fifteen thousand were 
 present, the men themselves cooperating 
 in making them successful. The greate st 
 "labor meetings ''bei ng held to-day are 
 conducted under c hurch auspic es. They 
 exceed in numbers and in interest those 
 held directly under the auspices of the 
 trades-unions themselves. 
 
 In one hundred and twenty-five cities in 
 the United States the ministers' associa- 
 tions and the central labor unions are ex- 
 changing fraternal delegates, the ministers 
 and workingmen regularly meeting with 
 
 29 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 each other's organizations, and freely taking 
 part in the discussions. There are about one 
 hundred and seventy-five ministers serving 
 in this capacit}^ This exchange of delegates 
 is resulting in a more cordial relationship 
 between the Church and Labor. In many 
 instances the ministers are elected to the 
 office of chaplain, and the regular meetings 
 of the union are opened w^ith prayer. This 
 plan has the hearty and unanimous endorse- 
 ment of the American Federation of Labor, 
 the federation having passed the following 
 resolution: — 
 
 Resolved^ That the American Federation of La- 
 bor recommends that all affiliated State and Cen- 
 tral Bodies exchange fraternal delegates with the 
 various State and City ministerial associations, wher- 
 ever practicable, thus insuring a better understanding 
 on the part of the Church and clergy of the aims and 
 objects of the labor union movement of America. 
 
 When the Presbyterian Church inaugur- 
 ated its Department of Church and Labor, 
 
 30 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 this denomination being the first to branch 
 out officially in this direction, the American 
 Federation adopted the resolution which 
 follows: — 
 
 Whereas^ the Presbyterian Church in the United 
 States of America, at its last National Convention, 
 officially established a Department of Church and 
 Labor for the express purpose of making a sys- 
 tematic study of the labor problem ; and 
 
 Whereas^ It is part of the plan of this department 
 to appoint in every industrial centre special commit- 
 tees that may become experts in their knowledge of 
 every phase of the labor movement, so that they may 
 inform the churches with respect to the aims of or- 
 ganized labor ; Therefore^ be it 
 
 Resolved^ That the American Federation of La- 
 bor, in convention assembled, indorse this new and 
 significant movement in the Presbyterian Church, 
 and we further recommend that Central Labor Bod- 
 ies cooperate with this department and with its sub- 
 committees in every way that may be consistent, in 
 order that the Church and the public at large may 
 have a more intelligent conception of the conditions 
 and aspirations of the toilers. 
 
 31 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 Not many years ago, the same federation 
 would probably have scorned any sort of an 
 approach on the part of a church organ- 
 ization. The above resolution was adopted 
 not only unanimously, but with considerable 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 At a recent conference of ministers who 
 were discussing the question of attracting 
 workingmen to the Church, several of them, 
 who have been active in the work of deal- 
 ing directly with artisans, — most of them 
 being fraternal delegates to central labor 
 bodies, — declared that the number of work- 
 ingmen in their congregations had grown 
 from about ten per cent to figures varying 
 from forty to sixty per cent. 
 
 Church and Labor throughout the United 
 States have, during the past four years, been 
 observing " Labor Sunday " on the Sunday 
 before Labor Day, by holding special serv- 
 ices in the churches, which have been at- 
 tended by thousands of men who had not 
 
 32 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF LABOR 
 
 previously gone to church in many years. In 
 many cases the men have marched in bodies 
 to the service from their meeting-places. 
 
 National conventions of labor, which 
 heretofore have been closed to ministers of 
 the gospel, are now opened with prayer by 
 local ministers, ministerial fraternal dele- 
 gates are received, they are appointed upon 
 important committees, and time is given to 
 a discussion of the relation of the Church 
 to Labor, the addresses of the ministers 
 being invariably received with enthusiasm. 
 
 These are some of the most conspicuous 
 signs on Labor's side of this question. Oth- 
 ers there are, and probably of still greater 
 significance, but there are sufficient reasons 
 why they should not be made public. 
 
 While there is considerable "alienation 
 of the workingman from the Church," there 
 is no other class of men among whom there 
 is this conspicuous movement toward the 
 Church. 
 
II 
 
 THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TOWARD 
 
 LABOR 
 
 Thirty-three denominations, repre- 
 senting eighteen million church members 
 and nearly forty million adherents, spoke 
 officially with reference to the Church's at- 
 titude toward Labor, at the meeting of the 
 Federal Council of the Churches of Christ 
 in America, held in Philadelphia in Decem- 
 ber, 1908. The resolutions unanimously 
 adopted at that time were the most signifi- 
 cant that had ever come before a church 
 council of any sort, being far in advance of 
 anything else passed by any of the denom- 
 inational assemblies or councils. It is not 
 possible to reproduce here the entire state- 
 ment and recommendations, but after a 
 very bold and clearly stated presentation 
 
 34 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 of the industrial situation and the Church's 
 relation to it in a general way, the Council 
 said: — 
 
 We deem it the duty of all Christian people to 
 concern themselves directly with certain practical 
 industrial problems. To us it seems that the churches 
 must stand — 
 
 For equal rights and complete justice for all men 
 in all stations in life. 
 
 For the right of all men to the opportunity for self- 
 maintenance, a right ever to be wisely and strongly 
 safeguarded against encroachments of every kind. 
 
 For the right of workers to some protection against 
 the hardships often resulting from the swift crisis of 
 industrial change. 
 
 For the principle of conciliation and arbitration in 
 industrial dissensions. 
 
 For the protection of the worker from dangerous 
 machinery, occupational disease, injuries and mor- 
 tality. 
 
 For the abolition of child labor. 
 
 For such regulation of the conditions of toil for 
 women as shall safeguard the physical and moral 
 health of the community. 
 
 35 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 For the suppression of the " sweating system." 
 
 For the gradual and reasonable reduction of the 
 hours of labor to the lowest practicable point, and 
 for that degree of leisure for all which is a condition 
 of the highest human life. 
 
 For a release from employment one day in seven. 
 
 For a living wage as a minimum in every industry, 
 and for the highest wage that each industry can afford. 
 
 For the most equitable division of the products of 
 industry that can be ultimately devised. 
 
 For suitable provision for the old age of the work- 
 ers and for those incapacitated by injury. 
 
 For the abatement of poverty. 
 
 To the toilers of America and to those who by or- 
 ganized effort are seeking to lift the crushing burdens 
 of the poor, and to reduce the hardships and uphold 
 the dignity of labor, this Council sends the greeting 
 of human brotherhood and the pledge of sympathy 
 and of help in a cause which belongs to all who fol- 
 low Christ. 
 
 The Council recommended to the several 
 Christian bodies represented, — 
 
 That the churches more fully recognize, through 
 their pulpits, press, and public assemblies, the great 
 
 36 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 work of social reconstruction which is now in pro- 
 gress, the character, extent, and ethical value of the 
 labor movement, the responsibilities of Christian 
 men for the formation of social ideals, and the obli- 
 gation of the churches to supply the spiritual motive 
 and standards for all movements which aim to realize 
 in the modern social order the fulfillment of the 
 second great commandment, "Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself " ; 
 
 That the study of existing conditions in the indus- 
 trial world, their origin and outcome, be more defin- 
 itely enforced as an immediate Christian duty ; 
 
 That to this end, in all theological seminaries, and, 
 so far as practicable, in other schools and colleges, 
 there be established, wherever they do not now exist, 
 courses in economics, sociology, and the social teach- 
 ings of Jesus, supplemented, wherever possible, by 
 investigation of concrete social facts, and that study 
 classes and reading courses on social questions be 
 instituted in connection with the churches and their 
 societies to foster an intelligent appreciation of ex- 
 isting conditions, and to create a public sentiment 
 through which relief and reform may be more effect- 
 ively secured ; 
 
 That the churches, with quickened zeal and keener 
 
 37 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 appreciation, through their pastors, lay leaders, and 
 members, wherever possible, enter into sympathetic 
 and fraternal relations with workingmen, by candid 
 public discussion of the problems which especially 
 concern them, by advocating their cause when just, 
 by finding the neighborly community of interest, and 
 by welcoming them and their families to the uses 
 and privileges of the local churches ; 
 
 That the proper general authorities of the denom- 
 inations endeavor by special bureau or department to 
 collate facts and mould opinion in the interest of a 
 better understanding between the Church and work- 
 ingmen, and particularly to obtain a more accurate 
 and general knowledge of the meaning of trades- 
 unionism, and especially that all church members 
 who, either as employers or as members of trades- 
 unions, are more specifically involved in the practical 
 problems of industry, be urged to accept their un- 
 paralleled opportunity for serving the cause of Christ 
 and humanity by acting, in his spirit, as mediators 
 between opposing forces in our modern world of 
 work; 
 
 That the Church in general not only aim to so- 
 cialize its message, to understand the forces which 
 now dispute its supremacy, to stay by the people in 
 
 38 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the effort to solve with them their problems, but also 
 modify its own equipment and procedure in the in- 
 terest of more democratic administration and larger 
 social activity ; 
 
 That the Church fail not to emphasize its own re- 
 lation, throughout the centuries and in the life of the 
 world to-day, to the mighty movements which make 
 for the betterment of social and industrial conditions. 
 
 These resolutions will stand for many 
 years to come as the Church's expression 
 of its sympathy for the masses. Already 
 they have been extensively printed in the 
 labor press of America, and the various 
 denominations are using them as their offi- 
 cial statements with reference to the social 
 problems of the times. 
 
 Some of the leading denominations have 
 established departments in the interest of 
 workingmen, notable among them in tlie 
 United States being the Presbyterians, 
 the Congregationalists, the Unitarians, and 
 the Episcopalians, while the Methodists 
 
 39 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 and the Baptists have appointed strong com- 
 mittees of social service. In Canada, the 
 Methodists and the Presbyterians have de- 
 partments or bureaus of social reform, and 
 a number of the churches in England, Scot- 
 land, and Australia are considering the mat- 
 ter of inaugurating similar enterprises. In 
 most cases, these departments and com- 
 mittees have secretaries or superintendents 
 vv^ho give all their time to the work, outlining 
 methods of work to be carried on by the 
 individual churches and ministers' organ- 
 izations. 
 
 Through the work of these departments, 
 the denominations are expressing their 
 attitude toward labor. In every case, this 
 expression has been most sympathetic. It 
 cannot truthfully be said by the working- 
 man that, in so far as the official declarations 
 of the churches are concerned, they have 
 been negligent or indifferent. There is little 
 to be desired in this respect. The unfort- 
 
 40 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 unate thing is that the churches have not 
 always lived up to their own ideals. They 
 have been too easily satisfied with resolu- 
 tions, and they have done too little in the 
 way of practical demonstration of their sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 For many years, some of the churches 
 have maintained "social unions" and so- 
 cieties "for improving the conditions of 
 workino'men " and "the securins^ of social 
 justice." Elaborate organizations have been 
 perfected, with long lists of bishops and 
 other church dignitaries as officers, some 
 of whom have long since forgotten that they 
 had been thus honored. An extensive liter- 
 ature on social questions has been issued, 
 and " mass meetings " have been held in 
 the interest of these enterprises. But out- 
 side of their own little coteries, practically 
 nobody has known of their existence. The 
 workingmen, who were supposed to be tlic 
 direct recipients of whatever blessings miglit 
 
 4^ 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 flow from them, knew nothing about them. 
 Organizations of this sort rarely meet with 
 the success which they deserve, but in most 
 cases they are mere fads of the Church, got- 
 ten up by some earnest souls who have come 
 to have an academic interest in "the masses." 
 But when they have come up against the 
 blood and the fire of the labor problem, 
 they have usually lost heart, and they have 
 been easily persuaded to desist. Meanwhile, 
 they have convinced themselves that they 
 were actually making a great impression 
 upon the Church and upon the working- 
 man. The trouble of it is that these men 
 and women have been overshadowed by a 
 disheartening institutionalism and formal- 
 ism. There is a lack of genuine enthusiasm 
 in the Church for such endeavors. One may 
 secure the passage of social resolutions by 
 the score at any church convention. There 
 are piled-up documents of this sort which 
 might give any church court occasion for 
 
 42 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 feeling proud of its attitude with reference 
 to the social question. But in scarcely a 
 sinsrle instance are these resolutions ever 
 put into actual practice. It is a comfortable 
 feeling to know that they are there, to be 
 referred to when any one, especially the 
 workingman, questions the relationship of 
 the Church to the problems that are per- 
 plexing him. 
 
 But why not be perfectly honest about 
 it, and confess that these resolutions mean 
 absolutely nothing; that they are the work 
 of some man who dared to challenge the 
 Church, and the Church, not caring to op- 
 pose, simply swallowed them at one gulp, 
 but with really no thought that anything 
 would ever be done with them? 
 
 The Church will never bring about the 
 great social reforms which are pressing, 
 until a few strong, fearless men are willing 
 to sacrifice everything, if need be, to accom- 
 plish the objects which are very clearly set 
 
 43 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 forth in our convention-passed resolutions. 
 This does not mean that any set of men 
 may bring this to pass; they must be men 
 who have a special gift for such a task, — 
 men who can see and feel, and are willing 
 to suffer, if need be, even as Christ suffered. 
 And the Church, itself, will bring to them 
 the bitterest suffering. 
 
 There is no doubt that the Church has 
 always been the whitest light in history. 
 No matter how dark the age, the Church 
 has stood out as a torch; it was sometimes 
 a smoky torch, but it was ofttimes the only 
 torch that showed men the way. But the 
 masses to-day are not very much concerned 
 about what the Church has been in his- 
 tory. They know that the people in the 
 churches to-day had ver}^ little to do with 
 the glorious traditions of the Church, and 
 they are demanding that they indicate their 
 interest in present-day problems. And the 
 masses are right. If the Church cares about 
 
 44 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 those things which trouble the people, it 
 should come out so clearly, not only in the 
 passing of line-sounding resolutions, but in 
 the actual performance of its duty, that there 
 would no longer be any doubt in their minds 
 as to its sincerity. 
 
 In scarcely a moral and civic campaign 
 in these days is the Church as such con- 
 sidered to be the leader, if, indeed, it is even 
 a direct participant. Few pay any attention 
 to the actions taken by ministers' associa- 
 tions; and Church Brotherhoods, and other 
 men's organizations in the Church are no- 
 toriously weak in municipal reform, when 
 one thinks of their possibilities. At their 
 conventions, they threaten and scold; but 
 the statesmen, even those who arc in the 
 Church, prefer to do their work through 
 some other agency, because, as one of them 
 put it, " these church men don't stay on the 
 job." If the Protestant churches of Amer- 
 ica, for instance, with their millions of ad- 
 
 45 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 herents, were to become really alive, there 
 is absolutely nothing in the way of reform, 
 municipal and social, which they could not 
 accomplish, in so far, of course, as men may 
 do these things. The Church is responsible 
 for the injustices and the wrongs now being 
 suffered by vast numbers of people, because 
 the Church could right them if it would; not 
 all the wrongs, to be sure, but most of them. 
 This does not mean that a church as- 
 sembly or council could accomplish these 
 things, especially by the passing of resolu- 
 tions. But if the men who are in the Church, 
 and who constitute the Church if anybody 
 does, were to resolve that these evils should 
 be wiped out, they would disappear, because 
 those men have the money and the influence 
 and know what needs to be done. Those 
 outside the Church cannot be held respons- 
 ible for the neglect and the weakness of 
 the Church. It is plainly a situation which 
 the Church, itself, must meet. 
 
 46 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 It is too late in the day to say that the 
 Church has nothing to do with social reform. 
 Conservative men may bewail the evil days 
 upon which we have fallen, and deplore the 
 fact that the Church can no longer take 
 refuge in the seclusiveness of the cloister, 
 or in the single purpose of preaching the 
 " simple gospel." That day will never re- 
 turn. Such methods may have sufficed in a 
 period when the world was satisfied to 
 accept the ecclesiasticism of the mediaeval 
 period, or the type of evangelism which 
 leaves out of account vast areas of human 
 experience. The true gospel of Jesus Christ 
 is as wide as human need, and as deep as 
 the human heart can feel. Any other kind 
 of a gospel is an insult to him who gave it 
 to us, and a slander upon his Christianity. 
 
 A re-reading of the splendid platform 
 adopted by the Federal Council will con- 
 vince any one that that body committed itself 
 pretty thoroughly to the social programme. 
 
 47 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 There is no getting away from the fact 
 that the churches here represented pledged 
 themselves to the securing of social justice. 
 It seems like a truism to say that the Church 
 believes in bringing in a reign of righteous- 
 ness. If it is n't here for that purpose, it has 
 no business to be here at all. But read again 
 those resolutions, and then try to indicate 
 how the Church, as an organization, is ac- 
 tually and definitely trying to usher in the 
 conditions called for. Take such a matter 
 as " the abolition of child labor." Where 
 are the representatives of the Church when 
 committees are appearing before the legis- 
 latures to plead for the enactment of a law 
 which will make it a reality? The labor 
 union is there. The social settlement will 
 have its representative. The woman's club 
 may send its delegates. But the Church is 
 rarely, if ever, present in the persons of its 
 members. And why should it not be there ? 
 Is it any more unholy to be engaged in this 
 
 48 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 business than it is to be doing any one of a 
 dozen other things which are regarded as 
 legitimate church work, as, for instance, to 
 spend an afternoon with the Ladies' Aid 
 Society, sewing garments for the poor, or 
 in teaching a class in the industrial school? 
 Is n't it perfectly legitimate to save the lives 
 of little children as well as their souls f Jesus 
 surely meant that brightness and cheer in 
 this life should come to those of whom he 
 said: " Suffer little children to come unto 
 me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
 Why cannot the Church send its committee 
 to the legislature to make the plea that Jesus 
 would make, were he here ? 
 
 Again, the Federal Council declared that 
 it would " advocate the cause of working- 
 men when their cause is just." Has anybody 
 heard of any denomination, or any conspicu- 
 ous church organization, since this resolu- 
 tion was passed, becoming the advocate of 
 any body of workingmen who were making 
 
 49 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 a fight for a living wage or decent sanitary 
 conditions? It would be a fine thing if we 
 could point to such an instance as an illustra- 
 tion of what the Church is doing in behalf 
 of workingmen. But the churches are silent 
 on these questions. They dare not, or they 
 will not, speak. There surely have been 
 enough instances in which the Church 
 would have been justified in protesting, but 
 the Church has passed by on the other side 
 and allowed the despised Samaritan — the 
 labor leader or the man outside the Church 
 — to step in and usurp the place which 
 rightfully belongs to it. 
 
 The Brotherhoods connected with the 
 various denominations of America are 
 vainly searching for a great task, — some- 
 thing which will call out the heroic and the 
 sublime in men. Here's the job — it's a 
 man's job, too. No one else can do it. But 
 do the men of the churches really want 
 to get into the serious business of life-sav- 
 
 50 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 ing? Aren't they rather more content to 
 sit around and talk and sing about it? 
 
 The Church has always been ready to 
 offer comfort in times of distress and illness. 
 It has always engaged in a magnificent phil- 
 anthropy of which it may well be proud. 
 It has visited the sick and fed the hungry. 
 But it has not loved its neighbor as it loved 
 itself. It is not going to the root of social 
 suffering, and attempting to cut it out. It is 
 not sufficient to say that if all the working- 
 men would become converted, all the social 
 ills of the world would be healed. The 
 workingmen are guilty, in large measure, 
 but they are not the only guilty ones. If the 
 Church were one half as strenuous in its 
 attempts to reach the " classes " as it is to 
 reach the " masses," the social problem 
 would be got at. It is only fair that the sin- 
 ner at the top should be given as much at- 
 tention as the sinner at the bottom. It may 
 be said that the rich are being preached to 
 
 SI 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 every Sabbath day, but they are not appealed 
 to so directl}^ and so specifically as are the 
 poor. We take it upon ourselves to say 
 many things to the workingman that we do 
 not dare say to his employer, because the 
 workingman is helpless and he does n't own 
 the pews in our churches. 
 
 Many a church is getting a great deal of 
 comfort out of the fact that it is conducting 
 a mission for workingmen, which, in most 
 cases, is situated on a side street, in a dark, 
 dingy, dirty building, and is managed by a 
 man to whom the Church is paying a piti- 
 fully small salary, usually because he is a 
 student or a worn-out preacher. But this 
 sort of a mission will never attract working- 
 men. It will not even attract those appar- 
 ently miserable foreigners in the neighbor- 
 hood, because they have been accustomed 
 to worship in the most beautiful cathedrals 
 in Europe. We cannot give them the mag- 
 nificent buildings with which they have 
 
 52 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 been familiar, but we can at least give them 
 clean, cheerful halls or churches. Further- 
 more, in the average mission, there is n't the 
 slightest trace of the spirit of democracy 
 which the workingman meets in almost 
 every other relationship in life, — in labor 
 union, lodge, club, saloon. The enterprise 
 seems to ignore all the laws of ps3^chology, 
 to say nothing about the spirit of democracy. 
 The leaders of our religious institutions 
 seem to have lost sight of a fact that they 
 have long since learned in business life, 
 namel}^, that there is nothing that a working- 
 man despises more heartily than a spirit of 
 patronage or paternalism. 
 
 Frequently, a church will imagine that 
 the introduction of institutional features will 
 save the day, and forthwith an elaborate 
 organization is perfected which it is hoped 
 will capture the community. But institu- 
 tional work, while very useful and very 
 commendable, is by no means a sohent of 
 
 53 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 the social question, nor does the working- 
 man always respond to such an appeal. The 
 great misfortune is that the average church 
 looks upon these features as merely a means 
 to an end, — which end, by the way, is sim- 
 ply the enlargement of the church roll. 
 Such an attitude is altogether wrong, and 
 contrary to the spirit of Jesus, who healed 
 the sick, not that they might come to hear 
 him preach, but because he had compas- 
 sion upon them, and because they needed 
 healing. 
 
 The Church should engage in social 
 work in behalf of the people, but it should 
 do this work even though it does not result 
 in a single accession to the church which 
 is doing it. The fact of the matter is, that 
 in many cases the people who have been 
 helped will unite with some other church 
 where their former poverty is unknown. It 
 is also true that the general impression made 
 upon the community always results in a 
 
 54 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 softening of the feeling toward the church 
 that is doing an unselfish work, even among 
 those who themselves are not the direct 
 recipients of the favor of the church. Thus 
 the Kingdom has been extended, and this 
 is worth while. Incidentally, those who 
 have been influenced in other fields will 
 come to the church which seems to be get- 
 ting no direct results from its social work. 
 In this way there is frequently an exchange 
 of courtesies between the churches. 
 
 One of the principal reasons why the 
 Church seems not to understand the social 
 and the industrial problem is the fact that 
 the ministry is recruited almost entirely 
 from the farming, the commercial, and the 
 professional classes. Very few working- 
 men, fresh from the ranks of the toilers in 
 the shop, the mill, the mine, and the factor}', 
 go into the ministry. It often happens that 
 a workingman's son will study in the theo- 
 logical school, but it is rarely true that he 
 
 55 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 carries with him the workingman's spirit, 
 largely because he has really never known 
 it. He has never experienced the real trials 
 of an artisan or laboring man. He may even 
 have worked with the laboring man dur- 
 ing his boyhood days and seen much of the 
 life of his class, but in most instances he 
 will have seen only the petty commonplace 
 things, which often make one impatient with 
 the workingman, or which, perhaps, make 
 one sympathetic only in the smaller affairs of 
 life. But the great pressing problems of arti- 
 san manhood he has never known. The re- 
 sponsibilities of the care of a workingman's 
 family he knows nothing about. And all too 
 frequently, if he has known these things, 
 the training and the atmosphere of the 
 school and the seminary have almost com- 
 pletely obliterated them from his heart and 
 mind. The system of education in practi- 
 cally all of our schools is not calculated to 
 increase one's sympathy for or interest in 
 
 56 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 the artisan class, except in an academic 
 way. The workingman is considered a 
 good subject for sociological investigation, 
 and his home is ruthlessly invaded by fad- 
 dists bent on securing alleged facts for 
 fool speeches, or students who are seeking 
 information for the preparation of theses 
 which shall earn them their degrees of 
 Ph. D. 
 
 The theological seminaries do not pre- 
 pare men to meet the situation adequately. 
 Their courses of study are antiquated, and 
 their professors as a class know nothing, 
 and seem to care less, about the questions 
 that trouble the masses. They take refuge 
 behind the worn-out excuse that the simple 
 gospel will solve all these problems, with- 
 out knowing what the problems are. 
 
 As most of the graduates of the seminary 
 are country-bred men, they have no con- 
 ception as to the difficulties and the heart- 
 breakins situations which so often confront 
 
 S7 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 the city workingman. They know nothing 
 about the great undercurrents which are 
 influencing the masses. They are entirely 
 ignorant of the aims and objects of the labor 
 movement, as expressed either in the trades- 
 union or in sociaHsm. To them these move- 
 ments are simply breeders of a social unrest, 
 and they have come to have the notion that 
 it is their business to put down social unrest, 
 forgetting that it is really the business of the 
 Church to create social unrest. 
 
 There are no labor troubles in Darkest 
 Africa, but the dynamics of the gospel will 
 soon create them. The Christian mission- 
 aries have found a continent of people sat- 
 isfied with low physical, mental, and moral 
 ideals. It is the object of the missionaries 
 to create among the heathen a healthy dis- 
 satisfaction with these conditions, by show- 
 ing them the possibilities of the Christian 
 life. When this awakening comes, it will 
 have no rest until it breaks the bands which 
 
 58 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH 
 
 bound them through many a century. It has 
 always been so with the Church. But hav- 
 ing aroused this spirit of social unrest in the 
 world, is the Church to step aside and per- 
 mit the unscrupulous agitator to come in, 
 taking for himself the place of leadership 
 which the Church has created for itself, or 
 will the Church retain the position which 
 belongs to it, by virtue of its work and its 
 history ? 
 
 The greatest question before the Church 
 to-day with reference to its attitude toward 
 labor is whether or not it is willing to lead 
 the people in their fight for democracy, — 
 to lead them unselfishly and with a fine de- 
 votion to its own highest ideals. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE ETHICAL VALUE OF THE LABOR 
 MOVEMENT 
 
 A STUDY of the reform movements during 
 the past century will reveal the fact that 
 workingmen have had more to do with their 
 inauguration than any other class. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone said, shortly before he 
 passed away : " I painfully reflect that in 
 almost every great political controversy of 
 the last fifty years, the leisured classes, the 
 educated classes, the wealthy classes, the 
 titled classes, have been in the wrong." The 
 common people, — the toilers, the men of 
 uncommon sense, — these have been re- 
 sponsible for nearly all of the social reform 
 measures which the world to-day accepts. 
 And whenever organized labor has had an 
 opportunity to do so, it has expressed itself 
 
 60 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 very emphatically with regard to these 
 questions, in most cases, long before any 
 other organized body of men cared to com- 
 mit themselves to them. 
 
 The labor movement is a world move- 
 ment. Cordial relationships are sustained 
 between the various national and interna- 
 tional organizations. They are discussing 
 the same problems. They are fighting the 
 same conditions. They are seeking to in- 
 augurate practically the same remedies. 
 While the ruling classes have been at war 
 with one another, the working classes have 
 been conferring as to how they might raise 
 the standard of living for all mankind. The 
 circular calling together the first great Coal 
 Miners' Convention said : " Let there be no 
 English, no Irish, no Germans, Scotch or 
 Welsh, for we are brethren." 
 
 It was the labor organizations that took 
 the first step toward forgetting the hatreds 
 of the Civil War. In 1885 the veterans of 
 
 61 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 both the Union and the Confederate armies, 
 who were members of the Knights of Labor, 
 formed an orsranization called the Grav and 
 the Blue. Their motto was a most impress- 
 ive one : " Capital divided, labor unites us." 
 Every man who becomes a member of 
 the American Federation of Labor accepts 
 the following: — 
 
 We are pledged to the emancipation of our class 
 from poverty, ignorance, and selfishness ; to be re- 
 spectful in word and action to every w^oman ; to be 
 considerate to the widow and the orphan, the weak 
 and the defenseless ; and never to discriminate against 
 a fellow worker on account of creed, color, or nation- 
 ality ; to defend freedom of thought, whether ex- 
 pressed by tongue or pen ; to educate ourselves and 
 our fellow workers in the history of the labor move- 
 ment. We promise that we will never knowingly 
 wrong a brother or see him wronged, if in our power 
 to prevent it. We will endeavor to subordinate every 
 selfish impulse to the task of elevating the material, 
 intellectual, and moral conditions of the entire labor- 
 ing class. 
 
 62 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 On the color question the trades-union 
 has alwa3'S been far in advance of any other 
 organization. Even in the South, where race 
 hatred is so prevalent, the negroes have been 
 admitted into the trades-unions, while they 
 have been barred from other organizations 
 that are antagonistic to organized labor. The 
 color barriers have been broken down by 
 labor unions, and not his color but his char- 
 acter bars the negro, when he is rejected. 
 It is quite true that individual labor unions 
 have sometimes sinned in this respect, but 
 wherever the sentiment of organized work- 
 ino^men has been manifested a^rainst the 
 negro, it will be found that this same spirit 
 has been prevalent to even a greater extent 
 in the churches and in civic and commercial 
 
 organizations. 
 
 In 1846, when the churches were, as the 
 abolitionists said, the "bulwarks of Ameri- 
 can slavery," when Garrison and Thompson 
 and Pillsbury were being mobbed by college 
 
 63 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 students, and when the slaveholders were 
 masters of Congress and the courts of law, 
 a labor convention at Lynn passed this cour- 
 ageous resolution: "We wish to secure to 
 our three million brethren and sisters groan- 
 ing in chains on the southern plantations the 
 same rights and privileges for which we are 
 contending." 
 
 It was among the labor guilds of the apo- 
 stolic days that the gospel had its freest 
 course. So true is this that in a volume en- 
 titled " Ancient Lowly," the author declares 
 that Christianity was simply a movement of 
 organized labor. To quote from this most 
 interesting volume : — 
 
 We must introduce here the quite singular but 
 perfectly natural fact that wherever the unions were 
 thoroughly established and, so to speak, nested to- 
 gether, the Christian church was sure to first plant 
 itself. Thus Pergamos, the seat of the great uprising 
 of workingmen under Aristonicus in b. c. 133-129, 
 became the mellow ground wherein the early Chris- 
 
 64 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 tians planted, and on which they reared one of their 
 most celebrated churches. . . . Cappadocia, which 
 did not fall into Roman hands until a. d. 17, was also 
 one of the early posts of the Christians. The first 
 epistle of St. Peter bears this name. Here, too, the 
 labor brotherhoods had a strong foothold. This is 
 rendered certain by the recent discovery of several of 
 their slabs and monuments bearing inscriptions. Lao- 
 dicea was also a stronghold of both the unions and 
 the early Christians. This place, together with Ephe- 
 sus and Hieropolis, is where were founded the seven 
 Apocalyptic churches. The early church found mel- 
 low souls among the brotherhoods of the eranoi and 
 thiasoi. 
 
 Apamea, near Antioch, the birthplace of Eunus, 
 instigator of the greatest of all the slave uprisings, 
 was also the cradle of one of the early churches. We 
 have, in our account of this great strike, shown that 
 Eunus and his men seemed both to be deeply imbued 
 with the everywhere present idea of the Messiah, 
 who was to redeem the world, and also thoroughly 
 acquainted with the methods of secret organization. 
 His knowledge of the auspices and plan of organiz- 
 ation were really at the base of his success. These 
 things, added to inscriptions found in the vicinity of 
 
 65 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 labor unions of an antiquity coeval with this great 
 servile war, show very plainly why Christianity took 
 root so readily in those regions of Asia. 
 
 The labor movement has become to thou- 
 sands of workingmen a substitute for the 
 Church. Socialism means more than an 
 economic system to many who have em- 
 braced it. It has become to them a religion. 
 The ethical value of the trades-union is 
 rarely appreciated. The average outsider 
 regards it as a militant organization, which 
 has brought into combination large numbers 
 of workingmen for the sole purpose of se- 
 curing better wages and shorter hours. It 
 is quite true that this is an important part 
 of the trades-union's function, but its efforts 
 are by no means confined to this limited 
 operation. In many American and Euro- 
 pean cities the trades-unions have erected 
 labor temples, which are devoted to the 
 exclusive use of trades-unionists and their 
 families. These buildings have become im- 
 
 66 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 portant social centres. The various locals in 
 the city hold their meetings in halls which 
 are set apart for this purpose, and here the 
 "walking delegates" or business agents 
 have their offices, to which the unemployed 
 workingman comes in order to secure em- 
 ployment, for it is part of the business 
 agent's function to find work for the mem- 
 bers of his organization. 
 
 Frequently, helpful lecture courses are 
 given. And there is a moral value in the 
 regular meetings of the union which is not 
 to be despised. The discipline of the aver- 
 age labor union meeting is of great value 
 to the inexperienced laborer. He comes 
 into contact with forces which drill him 
 mentally and morally to such a degree that 
 his ethical standards are bound to be ad- 
 vanced. He soon comes to realize that he 
 cannot force a particular measure upon his 
 associates. He must possess the facts, and 
 he must know how to present them, in order 
 
 67 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 to have his way. For these workingmen 
 think independently in their labor halls. 
 They do not blindly follow their leaders, 
 as is generally supposed. The office of the 
 "walking delegate" is by no means the 
 sinecure which most people imagine it is. 
 Every man has a fair chance to present his 
 views, no matter how unpopular he or they 
 may be. He learns the lesson of subordin- 
 ation to the will of others, which is always 
 a good discipline. Incidentally, and almost 
 unconsciously, the value of brotherhood, 
 of cooperation, of team work, are impressed 
 upon him. The sacrifices that he makes in 
 behalf of others have a salutary effect. 
 
 If the trades-union is a militant organiza- 
 tion, — and it is, — it also has its value in 
 times of peace. Very little is known about 
 the immense sums of money which are ex- 
 pended in caring for the sick, the unem- 
 ployed, the widows, and the orphans. The 
 International Typographical Union sup- 
 
 68 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 ports in Colorado a million-dollar home 
 for the use of its members who are suffer- 
 ing from tuberculosis, or who have be- 
 come incapacitated on account of old age 
 or illness. The Cigarmakers' Union, with 
 a membership of forty-five thousand, dis- 
 bursed during the past twenty-eight years 
 over eight million dollars in sick and other 
 benefits. The International Association of 
 Machinists is typical of a large number of 
 other trades-unions in the matter of sick and 
 death benefits. Members who are out of 
 work on account of a grievance, approved 
 by the General Executive Board, and who 
 have been three months in continuous good 
 standing, receive six dollars per week. 
 Married men, and single men with others 
 dependent upon them for support, receive 
 eight dollars per week, and apprentices re- 
 ceive one half of this rate. Members who are 
 unemployed because of their faithfulness to 
 the trades-union receive the same amount 
 
 69 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 of money as though they were out on strike. 
 A member, having attained the age of sixty- 
 five years, who has been ten consecutive 
 years in good standing, is entitled to $500, 
 and at sixty-eight years of age, with twenty 
 years to his credit, he receives the sum of 
 $1000. 
 
 Death benefits are as follows : Six months' 
 continuous good standing, $50; one year, 
 $75 5 t^^ years, $100; three years, $150; 
 four years, $200. A trades-unionist rarely, 
 if ever, applies to a charity organization 
 society for relief. 
 
 Carroll D. Wright said, in one of his 
 reports to the United States Congress, that 
 the trades-union is performing an invaluable 
 service in Americanizing the immigrant, 
 and he adds: — 
 
 The records of this of^ce show that during an in- 
 vestigation of building and loan associations a few 
 years ago, information from the Bohemians, the 
 Polish, and other clannish associations of that char- 
 
 70 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 acter could be obtained only through the services of 
 an interpreter. It was found that as soon as a Bohe- 
 mian or a Pole heard the word '^ government," or 
 " government agent," he closed his mouth and it was 
 impossible to secure any information. 
 
 This has been true in other investigations, notably 
 in collecting family budgets ; but with an intelligent 
 interpreter, using their own language, the nature of 
 the work was explained, and no further difficulty 
 experienced. The union is breaking down this trait 
 of character in the foreigners of the nationalities 
 mentioned. This it is doing, not as a matter of phil- 
 anthropy, but from a selfish necessity. The immigrant 
 must be taught that he must stand straight up on his 
 own feet ; that the ward politician is dependent on 
 him, — on his vote, etc., — and not he on the ward 
 politician. In this way he first learns that he is a 
 part of the government ; and while this is done by 
 indirection, in a large sense, there is no other force 
 that is doing it at all. The Pole, the Bohemian, the 
 Lithuanian, the Slovak, and to a much lesser degree 
 the Galician, have inherited the feeling that somehow 
 government is a thing inimical to their natural de- 
 velopment, — a power forcing itself upon them from 
 afar; an intrusive power for repression, taxation, 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 punishment only ; a thing which they must stand in 
 awe of, obey, pay tribute to, and wish that it had not 
 come among their people, even if they did not secretly 
 hate it, — a thing, in short, which ought not to be. 
 Being weaker than it, they must be silent in its pre- 
 sence ; and if forced to speak, lie, as for them to tell 
 the truth would mean imprisonment or death. . . . 
 It is doubtful if any organization other than a 
 trades-union could accomplish these things, for only 
 the bread and butter necessity would be potent enough 
 as an influence to bring these people out of the fixed 
 forms and crystallizations of life into which they have 
 been compressed. Certain it is that no other organ- 
 ization is attempting to do this work, at least not by 
 amalgamation, which is the only way assimilation 
 can be secured among the various foreign elements. 
 The drawing of these people away from their petty 
 clique leaders and getting them to think for them- 
 selves upon one line of topics, namely, the industrial 
 conditions and the importance of trade organization, 
 result in a mental uplift. The only way they can pull 
 a Slovak away from his leader is to pull him up until 
 he has gotten above his leader along the lines of 
 thought they are working on. The very essence of 
 the trade argument on the immigrant is — uncon- 
 
 72 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 sciously again — an uplifting and an Americanizing 
 influence. The unionist begins to talk better wages, 
 better working conditions, better opportunities, better 
 homes, better clothes. Now, one cannot eternally 
 argue ''better" in the ears of any man, no matter 
 how restricted the particular ''better" harped on, 
 without producing something of a psychological at- 
 mosphere of "better'* in all his thought and live 
 activities. If better food, better wages, or even better 
 beer, is the only kind of "better" one might get a 
 Slovak or a Lithuanian to think about, then the only 
 way to improve him is to inject the thought of 
 "better" into the only crevice to be found in his 
 stupidity. 
 
 The immigrant comes to our country with 
 a false conception as to our American insti- 
 tutions. To him the word government 
 means oppression, because that is what it 
 meant to him in the old country. lie soon 
 understands that here it means friend. 
 Cominsr to America with a stronor clannish 
 instinct, it is very difficult for him to asso- 
 ciate with his fellow workers; but in the la- 
 
 73 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 bor union, he gets away from his clannish- 
 ness, — something which even his religion 
 is not always able to accomplish for him. 
 And the labor press reaches men of various 
 nationalities. In some instances, a single 
 paper will be printed in two or three lan- 
 guages. The constitution of the United Mine 
 Workers of America is translated into nine 
 different languages. It frequently requires 
 four or five different interpreters at a single 
 meeting to obligate the candidates for ad- 
 mission into the trades-union. 
 
 The labor press has an ethical value. 
 There are something like two hundred and 
 fifty weekly journals and about one hundred 
 monthly periodicals. The monthlies as a 
 rule are the organs of international organiz- 
 ations, while the weeklies represent the 
 central labor unions, which are comprised 
 of the locals in a particular city. While the 
 editors of these journals are usually elected 
 by the central labor unions, or by the 
 
 74 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 national organizations, they are given the 
 largest liberty in the selection of the mate- 
 rial which is printed. 
 
 Many of these papers have a fine literary 
 value, and equal, in importance, some of the 
 better magazines. They are certainly su- 
 perior to most church papers, both as to 
 the reading matter and in their general typo- 
 graphical appearance. It is not uncommon 
 for a labor paper to regularly print the Sun- 
 day-School lesson for the following Sunday. 
 Practically every labor paper contains at 
 various times sermons preached by the lo- 
 cal ministers. For four years, the labor press 
 of America has regularly been printing an 
 article sent out by one of the departments 
 of Church and Labor in this country. The 
 editors frankly call them sermons. And it 
 has been noted that the articles which con- 
 tain the greatest amount of religious matter 
 are given the biggest headlines. The writer 
 of these articles, who is a minister, invari- 
 
 75 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 ably attaches the title " Rev." to his name, 
 largely because when the articles were first 
 sent out without this designation, the editors 
 themselves printed the title. These labor 
 journals usually have high moral standards, 
 and nearly every article printed has a ten- 
 dency to raise the ideals of its readers. 
 
 Organized labor is a strong force for more 
 temperate living among workingmen. A 
 temperance association, composed exclus- 
 ively of " walking delegates " and trades- 
 union officials, is an actuality in England, 
 a country which is more generally given 
 over to strong drink than is our own. The 
 official title of this remarkable society is 
 "The Trades-Union and Labor Officials' 
 Temperance Fellowship," and its object is 
 " the personal practice and promotion of 
 total abstinence, and the removal of trades' 
 society meetings from licensed premises." 
 The president of the Fellowship is Arthur 
 Henderson, M. P., who is also chairman of 
 
 76 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 the Labor Party in Parliament. Among the 
 members of the executive committee are 
 the Rt. Hon. Thomas Burt, M. P., a mem- 
 ber of the Privy Council ; the Rt. Hon. John 
 Burns, M. P., a member of the Cabinet; 
 Will Steadman, M. P., secretary of the 
 British Trades-Union Congress; J. Ramsay 
 MacDonald, M. P., secretary of the Labor 
 Party; D.J. Shackleton, M. P., chairman of 
 the Trades-Union Congress; and Harry 
 Gosling, who is a member of the London 
 County Council. Prominent amongthe vice- 
 presidents are J. Keir Hardie, M. P., Will 
 Crooks, M. P., L. C. C, Philip Snowden, 
 M. P., and twenty-six others, every one of 
 whom is a member of Parliament, and every 
 one a trades-unionist. This means that 
 pretty nearly every trades-unionist elected 
 to Parliament is a total abstainer. 
 
 The Fellowship had its beginnings in 
 Leeds in 1904, during a session of the Brit- 
 ish Trades-Union Congress. A 'Hea-party " 
 
 77 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 was held by invitation of the National Tem- 
 perance League, at which two hundred and 
 sixty delegates were present. The sugges- 
 tion that a total abstinence society be estab- 
 lished in connection with labor was made 
 at this time by Mr. Arthur Henderson, 
 M. P., on behalf of his colleagues. During 
 the following year many officials in the 
 trades-union movement manifested their 
 interest in the proposed society, with the 
 result that at the Hanley meeting of the 
 Trades Congress in 1905, at a gathering of 
 three hundred delegates, the " Temperance 
 Fellowship " was launched. Every year 
 since its organization the Fellowship has 
 given a tea at the time of the annual meeting 
 of the British Trades Congress, and in every 
 case fully half of the delegates attending 
 have been present. 
 
 At the last meeting of the congress, there 
 were present two hundred and seventy 
 delegates, representative of a body of close 
 
 78 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 upon one million workingmen, which com- 
 prises about one half of the trades-unionists 
 in England. The influence of this organiza- 
 tion upon the rank and file of the workers has 
 been quite remarkable. Temperance senti- 
 ment has been rapidly growing among the 
 younger men in the labor movement, and 
 as the secretary of the General Federa- 
 tion of Trades-Unions told me, " It is no 
 longer considered honorable or decent for 
 a labor man to put away three bottles of 
 porter." 
 
 The Fellowship issues considerable lit- 
 erature, and sends out its manifestoes 
 through the various local labor unions and 
 the labor press. When the " National Free- 
 dom Defense League," representing the 
 liquor interests, sent out a statement pur- 
 porting to be in the interest of the workers, 
 the entire committee and all of the vice- 
 presidents got out a counter petition, which 
 was given the widest publicity through the 
 
 79 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 daily press. Labor's statement was also 
 given additional publicity through imprints 
 issued by many local and national trades- 
 unions. These publications effectually si- 
 lenced the pretended friends of the work- 
 
 ingman. 
 
 One of the most effective methods of 
 work lies in securing meeting-places for 
 local trades-unions which are free from the 
 influence of the saloon. A successful effort 
 has been made to secure the use of public 
 buildings controlled by local governing 
 bodies, and in many cases churches have 
 been opened for the use of the trades-unions. 
 A notable instance of cooperation in this 
 respect is that of the Newcastle-on-Tyne 
 Temperance Institute, where, as a result 
 of the facilities offered, four thousand labor 
 union meetings have been held in the build- 
 ing since it was opened to them, with an 
 estimated attendance of over three hundred 
 and fifty thousand persons, many of whom 
 
 80 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 were wives and children paying the dues 
 of husbands and fathers. 
 
 The labor leaders of America have been 
 approached by the writer, asking their opin- 
 ions concerning the formation of a similar 
 organization in the United States. About 
 one hundred international officers have ex- 
 pressed themselves as being in favor of such 
 an organization, and, no doubt, in a short 
 time the organization, adapted to American 
 conditions, will be launched. PresidentGom- 
 pers, of the American Federation of Labor, 
 has at three annual conventions expressed 
 himself very strongly on the general ques- 
 tion of freeing the labor unions from the 
 influence of the saloon. In his last report. 
 President Gompers said: — 
 
 There is a constantly growing desire among our 
 membership to hold their meetings in halls on the 
 premises of which there is no sale of intoxicants. 
 There is, however, in nearly all centres a dearth of 
 sufficient halls suitable for meeting-rooms other than 
 
 8i 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 those with saloon attachments. In the interest of so- 
 briety and morality, I again urge that this convention 
 strongly recommend to our affiliated organizations 
 throughout the country that they inaugurate a move- 
 ment which shall permit the use of our public 
 schoolrooms for the evening meetings of our labor 
 organizations. 
 
 In this effort to secure such meeting- 
 places, the Christian people of America 
 should give the organized workmen their 
 heartiest support, for our efforts in the 
 matter of temperance reform should not 
 be merely negative, but positive. It is not 
 sufficient simply to close up the saloon. 
 It is necessary to find a substitute for the 
 saloon. This, the trade-unionists are earn- 
 estly trying to do. 
 
 Organized labor is making a fight for the 
 child. The National Child Labor Commit- 
 tee finds no heartier supporters anywhere 
 than they do in the ranks of the trades-union 
 movement. In the interest of the home life, 
 
 82 
 
ETHICAL VALUE OF LABOR MOVEMENT 
 
 it is demanding equal pay to men and women 
 for equal work, thus giving the women a 
 square deal. There is no part of President 
 Gompers' annual report which is given a 
 more enthusiastic reception than that in 
 which he deals with the question of uni- 
 versal peace. For, after all, it is the work- 
 ingman who suffers most during a time of 
 international strife. 
 
 While the socialist movement has not 
 yet become as practical as the trades-union 
 movement, it, nevertheless, has an import- 
 ant ethical value in the development of work- 
 ing people. Many of the ideals of social- 
 ism are based upon Christian principles, and 
 they are born of a purpose to lift up our 
 common humanity. 
 
IV 
 
 WHY CHURCH AND LABOR MAY COOPERATE 
 
 There maybe many points of difference 
 between the Church and Labor as to speci- 
 fic aims and methods, but there are enough 
 points of agreement and a sufficient num- 
 ber of fundamental principles for which 
 both stand, to warrant the Church and La- 
 bor in uniting for the purpose of carrying 
 out a common programme. 
 
 The Church and Labor should be sym- 
 pathetic one toward the other; first, because 
 of their common mistakes. Both organiza- 
 tions have been controlled by men and 
 women who were very human and there- 
 fore fallible. There are still occasions when 
 a criticism one of the other is justifiable. 
 But this criticism should be sympathetic, 
 because it will no doubt be discovered 
 
 84 
 
CHURCH AND LABOR MAY COOPERATE 
 
 that the critic has been guilty of the same 
 offense. 
 
 Church and Labor may cooperate, be- 
 cause they both believe very strongly in 
 the salvation of society, although they may 
 not agree in every particular as to how this 
 salvation is to be accomplished. No one 
 can successfully deny that the influence of 
 the Church has extended infinitely beyond 
 the comparatively narrow limits of its 
 own institutions and organizations. A city 
 without a church would present a hopeless 
 situation. The unconscious influence of 
 Christianity cannot be measured. The prin- 
 ciples of the Church have so permeated 
 society that the great mass of men have 
 come to accept them as a matter of course. 
 But even more significant is the positive 
 influence of the Church upon society. How- 
 ever ineffective it may be in some respects, 
 the Church may well be proud of its history 
 in the matter of social reform. The labor 
 
 8; 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 movement, if it counts for anything at all, 
 must be considered as a social movement. 
 In a very important sense, the individual is 
 absolutely lost in it. There is no term that 
 is more frequently employed to express the 
 significance of this movement than " the 
 solidarity of the working classes." 
 
 Church and Labor may cooperate be- 
 cause they both believe in the emancipation 
 of the individual. They both demand that 
 a man shall rise up and be counted as one. 
 There was a time when nothing was quite 
 so cheap as human life. Even to-day, many 
 large employers of labor consider it cheaper 
 to run the risk of killing their employees 
 and paying the slight indemnity, than to go 
 to the expense of introducing safety appli- 
 ances. Labor has long been fighting for the 
 recognition of the value of the individual 
 human life. It has insisted that a man is of 
 more value than a machine. The ancient 
 philosophers declared that a purchased 
 
 86 
 
CHURCH AND LABOR MAY COOPERATE 
 
 slave is better than a hired one, and in ac- 
 cordance with this principle they compelled 
 half the world to live behind prison bars. 
 They insisted that the workingman has no 
 soul. Then came Jesus Christ. He showed 
 the world how highly God values the indi- 
 vidual. And the Church has ever since 
 advocated this principle. 
 
 Church and Labor may cooperate because 
 they both believe in the care of the human 
 body. It would not be very difficult to pro- 
 duce proof texts from Scripture in order to 
 indicate that the Bible teaches this doctrine. 
 "Ye are the temples of the Holy Ghost" 
 was the statement of the New Testament 
 writer when he argued for bodily cleanli- 
 ness. Labor is trying to secure higher wages 
 and shorter hours, in order that living con- 
 ditions may be improved. In such matters 
 as sanitary reform in tenement houses and 
 factories, in the securing of suitable social 
 and recreative centres for the people, and in 
 
 87 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 every other particular that influences the 
 physical conditions of the masses. Church 
 and Labor may present a united front. 
 
 Church and Labor may cooperate because 
 they are both aiming at the development 
 of the human soul. One takes it for granted 
 that the Church is interested in soul devel- 
 opment. Unfortunately, the Church has 
 sometimes confined itself too strictly to this 
 phase of its work. It must not be assumed, 
 however, that the labor movement is simply 
 a bread-and-butter question. It is more than 
 that, and always has been. The subjects 
 discussed in the chapter on the Ethical 
 Value of the Labor Movement are indi- 
 cative of the attitude of Labor toward the 
 moral questions confronting society to-day. 
 The trades-unions have not only raised the 
 standard of living, they have not only bet- 
 tered the morale of the workers, but have 
 given them aspirations and ideals which 
 are influencing the soul life of the people. 
 
 88 
 
CHURCH AND LABOR MAY COOPERATE 
 
 Because the Church and Labor have so 
 many important things in common, it must 
 be obvious that it would be to the advan- 
 tage of both to get together so that each may 
 become more effective. 
 
 Unfortunately, the Church is attempting 
 to reach the workingman from above. It has 
 failed to recognize the spirit of democracy, 
 which has been so frequently referred to 
 in previous chapters. It has been trying 
 to "help" the workingman. There was a 
 time when some men — the so-called priv- 
 ileged classes — believed that the rest of the 
 world was created for their special benefit. 
 All others were made simply to serve them, 
 to make life soft and easy. They could not 
 bear to think of hardship or of suffering. 
 Such things were intended only for the 
 " lower classes," — those who were so 
 related to the beasts of the field, so close to 
 the clods of the earth, that all the finer sens- 
 ibilities were absent from their lives. But 
 
 89 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 they slowly discovered that the " clods " 
 were capable of better things, so they began 
 to "help " them on to the higher things of 
 life. Amazing was the degree to which " the 
 man with the hoe " could attain, when he 
 was given half a chance. That he could 
 hold his own with the best of those who 
 formerly regarded themselves as of superior 
 clay, of " bluer blood," of finer grain, was 
 a discovery which came as a great surprise. 
 Be it said to the credit of most of them, they 
 welcomed the revelation that the common 
 people were made of the same material that 
 they were, — that their ideals of life, their 
 heart hungers, their sorrows and their griefs, 
 their loves and their joys, were very much 
 like their own. All the more willing were 
 they to give their lives in service in behalf 
 of their more unfortunately situated neigh- 
 bors. 
 
 But now we are ready for another step in 
 advance. It was a fine thing to help the man 
 
 90 
 
CHURCH AND LABOR MAY COOPERATE 
 
 who was so ready to help himself, or even 
 the man who was not ready. It was a Christ- 
 like thing to bear the burdens of those who 
 were heavy-laden. There will always be 
 such in the world. Misfortune and accident, 
 the lack of opportunity on account of physi- 
 cal disability or illness, and a good many 
 other things, will always leave in our midst 
 those who should be given a helping hand. 
 However, the normal man, be he rich or 
 poor, educated through books or through 
 experience ; be he black or white, yellow or 
 red, no matter what his circumstances, — 
 so long as he is a man who is doing a man's 
 work in the world, is " helping " every other 
 fellow in a way which is rarely appreciated. 
 The poorest, neediest man in the world, who 
 is doing his best, is rendering a real service 
 to the richest man in the world. He is mak- 
 ing]: a contribution to the world's work which 
 mere wages do not repay. Even the de- 
 spised immigrant, who does not understand 
 
 91 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 a word of English, but who is contributing 
 his share to the common good by shoveling 
 dirt in a construction camp, is making a 
 debtor of the man who will later ride over 
 that railroad track in his comfortable Pull- 
 man, made smooth-running because that 
 Italian made a good job of his shoveling. 
 But everywhere in human life, in the low- 
 liest places, in shop and factory, on the street 
 and on the road, everywhere, men and 
 women, and even little children, are bring- 
 ing their contributions to the great treasure 
 house to which we all come and freely draw 
 — some more, some less; but he who draws 
 most becoming the greatest debtor to all 
 mankind. 
 
 Here is the point, then: Let us talk less 
 about " helping," about " service," and let 
 us think more about "exchange"; for that 
 is what it is, — the exchange of our abilities, 
 our contributions. He who teaches his bro- 
 ther a great truth, himself learns another. 
 
 92 
 
CHURCH AND LABOR MAY COOPERATE 
 
 This is the spirit which the Church needs 
 to learn. We are talking too much about , 
 " sacrifice " and " devotion " in our church 
 life and work, forgetting that there are others 
 who are sacrificing as much as we are, and 
 who are just as devoted. The problem of 
 the Church and Labor is not a question of 
 raising money. Money has practically no- 
 thing to do with it. Jesus never mentioned it 
 when he commissioned the disciples. He 
 spoke of spirit and life. The Church has al- 
 ways been greatest when it was poorest. It 
 was when Francis of Assisi sacrificed his 
 wealth, and took upon himself the form of 
 a servant, that he became a leader of men. 
 
 It is not even a question of method. There 
 is no system which may be introduced in 
 the Church that will make the Church uni- 
 versally effective. Many a church con- 
 ducted in the most old-fashioned manner, 
 without any regard for modern methods, 
 has been highly successful; but back of it 
 
 93 
 
THE CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 all, there was the spirit which attracted the 
 men. 
 
 Workingmen are coming to believe that 
 their salvation will depend upon themselves ; 
 and this is a most wholesome spirit to en- 
 courage. The depressed people need the 
 assistance which the Church has always 
 been rendering. There will always be a field 
 for philanthropy. Men will still be called 
 upon to render service to their fellow men, 
 but never should there be a sense of su- 
 periority, even when ministering to the low- 
 liest. In the discussion of the relation of 
 Church and Labor, it should always be 
 remembered that we are dealing with two 
 great forces, each feeling that it has a dis- 
 tinct mission in the world, and each with a 
 justifiable pride in its history. Neither can 
 afford to look upon the other with a spirit 
 of patronage. 
 
 The spirit of the labor movement is be- 
 coming so strongly religious, and there is so 
 
 94 
 
CHURCH AND LABOR MAY COOPERATE 
 
 much of the social spirit developing in the 
 Church, that it seems altogether possible 
 that some day Church and Labor will stand 
 upon a common platform. But should either 
 neglect the increasing opportunity which is 
 thus coming to it, it will then become a 
 question as to whether the Church will 
 capture the labor movement, or whether the 
 labor movement will capture the Church. 
 
 . ^', . > , 
 
 ■> J * > o e 
 
» • I _ c ^ 
 
A SUGGESTED LIST OF BOOKS 
 ON CHURCH AND LABOR 
 
 Christianity and the Social Crisis, by Walter Rauscen- 
 busch. Published by Macmillan Co. 
 
 The Churches and the Wage-Earners, by C. B. Thomp- 
 son. Published by Charles Scribners' Sons. 
 
 Christianity's Storm Centre, by Charles Stelzle. Pub- 
 lished by Fleming H. Revell Co. 
 
 Christianity and the Working Classes, by George Haw. 
 Published by Macmillan Co. 
 
 The World as the Subject of Redemption, by Wm. H. 
 Freemantle. Published by Longmans Co. 
 
 The Institutional Church, by Edward Judson. Published 
 by Lentilhon & Co. 
 
 Working with the People, by Charles Sprague Smith. 
 Published by A. Wessels Co. 
 
 Jesus Christ and the Social Question, by Francis G. Pea- 
 body. Published by Macmillan Co. 
 
 The Social Problem and the Churches' Duty, by David 
 Watson. Published by A. & C. Black. 
 
 The Bitter Cry of the Children, by John Spargo. Pub- 
 lished by Macmillan Co. 
 
 The Church and the Changing Order, by Shailer Math- 
 ews. Published by Macmillan Co. 
 
 Some Ethical Phases of the Labor Question, by Carroll 
 D. Wright. Published by the Amer. Unitarian Ass'n. 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
MODERN 
 
 RELIGIOUS 
 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 DR. AMBROSE W. VERNON 
 
 For a long time there has been an atmosphere of 
 nncertainty in the religious realm. This uncertainty 
 has been caused by the widespread knowledge that 
 modem scholarship has modified the traditional con- 
 ceptions of the Christian religion, and particularly by 
 widespread ignorance of the precise modifications to 
 which modern scholarship has been led. 
 
 The aim of this series of books is to lay before the 
 great body of intelligent people in the English-speak- 
 ing world the precise results of this scholarship, so 
 that men both within and without the churches may 
 be able to understand the conception of the Christian 
 religion (and of its Sacred Books) which obtains 
 among its leading scholars to-day, and that they may 
 intelligently cooperate in the great practical problems 
 with which the churches are now confronted. 
 
 While at many a point divergent views are cham- 
 pioned, it has become apparent in the last few years 
 that it is possible to speak of a consensus of opinion 
 among the leading scholars of England and America, 
 who have, in general, adopted the modern point of 
 view. 
 
The publishers and editor congratulate themselves 
 that this consensus of opinion may be presented to 
 the public not by middle-men, but by men who from 
 their position and attainment are recognized through- 
 out the English Protestant world as among those best 
 able to speak with authority on the most important 
 subjects which face intelligent religious men to-day. 
 It is a notable sign of the times that these eminent 
 specialists have gladly consented to pause in their de- 
 tailed research, in order to acquaint the religious 
 public with the results of their study. 
 
 Modem Religious Problems are many, but they 
 fall chiefly under one of the four divisions into which 
 this series of books is to be divided : — 
 
 I. The Old Testament. 
 II. The New Testament. 
 
 III. Fundamental Christian Conceptions. 
 
 IV. Practical Church Problems. 
 
 Under these four main divisions the most vital 
 problems will be treated in short, concise, clear vol- 
 umes. They will leave technicalities at one side and 
 they will be published at a price which will put the 
 assured results of religious scholarship within the 
 reach of all. 
 
 The volumes already arranged for are the following c 
 
 I. OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 "THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
 LAW." By Canon S. R. DRIVER, Oxford University. 
 
 "HOW WE GOT OUR OLD TESTAMENT." 
 
 By Professor WILLIAM R. ARNOLD, Andover Semin- 
 ary. 
 
 "THE PRIMITIVE RELIGION OF ISRAEL." 
 
 By Professor L. B. PATON, Hartford Theological Semi»» 
 ary. 
 
II. NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 "THE EARLIEST SOURCES FOR THE LIFE OP 
 JESUS." By Professor F. C. BURKITT, Cambridge Uni- 
 versity, England. (Now Ready.) 
 
 ••THE MIRACLES OF JESUS." 
 
 By Professor F. C. PORTER, Yale University. 
 
 "THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH." 
 
 By Professor B. W. BACON, Yale University. (Now 
 Ready.) 
 
 "HOW WE GOT OUR NEW TESTAMENT." 
 By Professor J. H. ROPES, Harvard University. 
 
 -PAUL AND PAULINISM." 
 
 By Rev. JAMES MOFFATT, D. D., Broughty Ferry, 
 Forfarshire, Scotland. (Now Ready.) 
 
 "THE HISTORICAL AND RELIGIOUS VALUE OF 
 THE FOURTH GOSPEL." By Professor E. F. SCOTT, 
 Queen's University, Kingston. (Now Ready.) 
 
 •'THE BIRTH AND RESURRECTION OF OUR 
 LORD." By Professor WILLIAM H. RYDER, of And- 
 over Seminary, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 III. FUNDAMENTAL CHRISTIAN 
 CONCEPTIONS 
 
 "THE GOSPEL OF JESUS." , . , o • 
 
 By Professor G. W. KNOX, Union Theological Seminary. 
 New York. With General Introduction to the Sones. (N ow 
 
 Ready.) 
 
 "THE GOD OF THE CHRISTIAN." ^ , . , -^ 
 By Professor A. C. McGIFFERT, Umon Theological Sem- 
 
 inary. 
 
 "SIN AND ITS FORGIVENESS." . 
 
 By President WILLIAM DeW. HYDE, Bowdoin CoUege. 
 (Now Ready.) 
 
 *THE PERSON OF JESUS." 
 
 By President H. C. KING, Oberlin College. 
 
 -THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES^ 
 
 By Profe«or SHAILER MATHEWS. University of Ch»- 
 cago. 
 
IV. PRACTICAL CHURCH PROBLEMS 
 
 "THE PLACE OF THE CHURCH IN MODERN 
 SOCIETY." By WM. JEWETT TUCKER, Ex-jeresi- 
 dent of Dartmouth College. 
 
 ••THE CHURCH AND LABOR." 
 
 By CHARLES STELZLE, Superintendent of Departmeat 
 of the Church and Labor of the Presbyterian Church of the 
 United States. (Now Ready.) 
 
 *'THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE BIBLE SCHOOLS 
 TO MODERN NEEDS." By Professor CHARLES F. 
 KENT, Yale University. 
 
 "THE CHURCH AND THE CHILD." 
 
 By Rev. HENRY SLOANE COFFIN, Madison Ave. 
 
 Presbyterian Church, New York City. 
 
 "THE PRESENTATION OF RELIGION TO EDU- 
 CATED MEN." By Rev. GEORGE HODGES, D. D., 
 Dean of the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, 
 Mass. 
 
 The general editor of the series, Rev. Ambrose 
 White Vernon, is a graduate of Princeton University 
 (1891) and of Union Theological Seminary (1894). 
 After two years more of study in Germany, on a fel- 
 lowship, he had an experience of eight years in the 
 pastorate, at Hiawatha, Kansas, and East Orange, 
 New Jersey. From 1904 to 1907 he was professor of 
 Biblical literature in Dartmouth College, and then 
 professor of practical theology at Yale till the present 
 year, when he returned to the pastorate, succeeding 
 the late Dr. Reuen Thomas at Harvard Church, 
 Brookline, one of the leading churches of metropoli- 
 tan Boston. Dartmouth College gave him the de- 
 gree of D. D. in 1907. 
 
 The volumes are attractively bound in cloth. Thin 
 i2mo, each ^o cents net. Postage j cents. 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 4 Park St., Boston : 85 Fifth Ave., New York 
 
jp-NT-^TTA T,TT>T- ■ - ^ 
 
 14 DAY USE 
 
 RBTORN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
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 General Library 
 
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